


a single, necessary epiphany

by playedwright



Category: Supernatural
Genre: (this is a fix it), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Eventual Happy Ending, Fix-It, Introspection, M/M, Pining, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Temporary Character Death, that was accidental but like what can you do, the author hated the finale and wrote 5k of their own brain rot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 08:09:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27650030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/playedwright/pseuds/playedwright
Summary: Cas said he was worthy. And what the hell does that count for, now that he’s gone? Now that he's left the weight of his heavy confession in the palms of Dean’s hands and in the bloody print on the jacket Dean still hasn’t washed. All that Dean has is the echoing words of Cas’s dying confession to haunt him better than any damn ghost ever could. And what’s it fucking count for, anyway?Jack tells him, “It counts for everything.”
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 32
Kudos: 216





	1. once more, with feeling

**Author's Note:**

> if u are subscribed to me i am so sorry u had to see this email . if u are my friend pls forgive me for writing destiel in this the year of our lord 2020. however i think that i should have been given free reign to write whatever i want and i want to rewrite the finale and this is my audition tape xoxo
> 
> (thank you to sabi and cait who live in permanent super hell with me and who held my hand through this. oh and thank you to jd for once again reading a fic where i rescue a character from hell)

_yet the story of orpheus, it occurs to me, is not just about the desire of the living to resuscitate the dead but about the ways in which the dead drag us along into their shadowy realm because we cannot let them go. so we follow them into the underworld, descending, descending, until one day we turn and make our way back._

  
  
  
  


He wonders if Cas can hear him praying still.

Does it truly matter if he does? Dean does it anyway. Crawls out of bed each morning and falls to his knees and bows his head and whispers under his breath and hopes. Hell, that’s what faith is, Dean’s learned. Only took him a decade or so.

It’s early. Too fuckin’ early. It almost always is, these days. Too early, when he gets out of bed. Too early, when he pops the cap off of his beer bottle and brings it to his lips after his work shifts. Too early, when he climbs back in between cold sheets and closes his eyes and waits until the buzz turns to background noise and puts him to sleep.

Sam doesn’t say a damn thing. He sure as hell tried, especially for the first few days, especially before he started the job, but something must have finally gotten through that kid’s thick skull because eventually he stops trying to bring it up. There’s always breakfast on the table, even when Dean is up too early for it to be normal. Even if it’s a little cold. Sam always puts out a fucking spread, like if he covers the table with enough bacon and eggs it’ll make everything better.

And. Well. It doesn’t make anything better, but it sure as hell doesn’t make anything worse.

Dean doesn’t know how many days have gone by, but one morning Sam sits down at the seat in front of Dean and sets his laptop down. Dean looks up, like a damn dog with wide puppy eyes full of hope. Sam’s smile is tight and the small shake of his head makes Dean’s breakfast taste cold and rubbery.

“I’m sorry,” Sam says, and Dean’s sure he means it. “I’m still looking.”

“Yeah,” Dean mutters. He puts his fork down on his plate and doesn’t meet Sam’s eye. “I am, too.”

Sam clears his throat. “I found something else, though,” he says. Dean appreciates that he doesn’t keep his voice gentle. Doesn’t fucking baby him. He just moves the fuck on. Dean wants to do the same so fuckin’ bad. “Simple salt and burn, I think. In Des Moines. Kids at a local college think they’re being haunted by an old librarian. Would probably only take us a day to look into, honestly. Quick and easy.”

Dean hums. “I have the weekend off,” he says thoughtfully, so they load up the car with shotguns and salt rounds and the same music they’ve always listened to and hit the road.

They’ve been to Des Moines more times than Dean can count, and driven through it even more, but there’s a small private college being terrorized by some restless asshole, and no one questions their authority when they flash their badges. They go to the hospital to talk to a survivor, a girl who can’t be more than a sophomore in college, with wide eyes and a crooked-toothed smile. The ghost has been making its rounds through her study group, killing two people so far but not completing the job with her. She picks at her chipped nail polish as she answers their questions in a dazed tone.

“Thank you, Gabriela,” Sam says, in that sincere tone of his that Dean’s never been able to master, and he turns to face the door.

Dean pauses when a flash of silver catches his eye, and watches as Gabriela pulls a rosary from the pocket of her hospital gown and holds it between her fingers. He’s not sure why he can’t look away as she starts to pray.

She catches him, of course. Gives him a curt kind of smile that is far too knowing for any kid under twenty. “You believe in God?” she asks.

It’s a loaded question. Dean was never prepared for it before, and now that everything is different, he finds he still doesn’t have an answer ready. He supposes he does. He believes in Jack, after all. He prays daily. Does that count as faith?

“I believe in something,” he says finally. He can feel Sam’s gaze on him from behind.

Gabriela nods. “That’s all He wants. Is for you to believe in something greater than yourself. Do you have that?”

No hesitation. “Yeah, I do. I did. I’m—I’m looking for it, again.”

“Good,” Gabriela says. She winces as she shifts, jostling the broken ribs that have put her in her hospital bed. Dean is struck dumb by the realization of why they’re here in the first place, and he staggers back, a little dazed himself.

“We’ll, uh, be in contact,” he tells her, and Sam opens the door. “If we have any more questions.”

The dazed look returns to Gabriela’s face. She goes back to looking out the window and picking at her nail polish. Dean thinks about how young nineteen actually is. Thinks about how it’s damn near a miracle for someone that young to believe in something so fully.

Sam doesn’t bring it up.

It ends up being nothing more than a salt and burn, and Dean’s grateful for it, even as they dig up the dead librarian’s grave. He’s not as young as he used to be, a fact that just feels more relevant every damn day. He’ll be sore as shit come Monday morning’s work shift.

Sam’s phone rings just as they uncover the bones, and it’s one of the students from Gabriela’s group that they’d talked to before making their way over here. A freshman with enough ambition to rival Kevin Tran’s. Dean keeps digging as Sam answers the phone.

He digs faster when he hears the urgency in Sam’s voice.

Dean makes a pile as best as he can, soaking it in salt as Sam yells at the kid through the phone. The student and his buddy ignored Dean and Sam’s suggestion of steering clear from the library, and they’re paying for it now by running through the halls with a ghost hot on their tales.

“If you can find anything with iron,” Sam tries to say, and Dean can hear screaming on the other end of the line. He tosses a lit match into the grave and watches as the bones go up in flames.

They get the damn ghost, but they’re half a second too late. The buddy whose name Dean can’t remember doesn’t make it.

Dean dry-heaves in the motel bathroom until his stomach physically can’t do it anymore, and Sam kindly doesn’t look at him as he brushes his teeth to clear the taste and washes his face with cold water to clean off the tear tracks.

Gabriela’s lingering on campus, when they stop by just to make sure everything worked out. She gives them a small smile.

“Oliver told me what you guys did for him and Jared,” she says. “I knew it was fishy to have a Fed believe in God.”

Dean raises an eyebrow. “Hey, I said I believe in _something,_ ” he reminds her. The kid’s got a nice laugh. Dean hopes she doesn’t lose that. “We’re takin’ off, but. Everything seem okay around here?”

She glances around campus. “Hard to say,” she admits. “Three of my friends died. That kind of thing changes the way normal feels, you know?”

Sam looks at Dean. “Yeah, we know,” he murmurs. “Right, well. Oliver has our number. If you guys notice anything else suspicious.”

“I’ll call my new ghost-hunting friends,” Gabriela says. She rocks forward, hesitating, before moving and wrapping her arms quickly around Sam. Her voice is muffled as she tells him, “Thank you. This could have been so much worse.”

“It could have been better,” Dean mutters, mostly to himself. He thinks about Jared, the kid whose name he couldn’t remember. The kid whose name he won’t forget again. He doesn’t mean for Gabriela to hear him, but she does anyway. He’s only a little surprised when she hugs him, too.

“It could have been worse,” she repeats firmly. She’s sweet, trying to comfort him like this. Dean hopes she never loses that, either. As she pulls away, she fishes the same rosary out of her cardigan and presses it into Dean’s hands. “Here.”

He holds his hands up. “Hey, no way,” Dean protests, and she cuts him off.

“I think it will help you find what you’re looking for,” she tells him. Dean pockets it without another word.

It’s a quiet drive. Tense. Dean hates that he gets like this after cases where they don’t stop the damn thing in time, but he can’t help it. He’s done this for his entire damn life, and sometimes it still ain’t enough. It’s a part of the job, losing people. Yet it never gets fuckin’ easier.

“We can’t save everyone—” Sam starts, but he stops when Dean shoots him an incredulous look. His head drops. “I know. I just.”

“I know,” Dean snaps, and he turns the radio up.

Not for the first time, as they make their way back to Lebanon, Dean thinks of Jack. He attests the pang in his chest to heartburn and grits his teeth. Damn kid. Dean misses him so bad it fucking suffocates him. He wonders if this is how Bobby felt, any time Dean and Sammy climbed back into the Impala and drove away from his house. Hates that he hasn’t seen the kid and hates that he doesn’t think he ever will again. All of it feels like bullshit. Jack’s doing whatever the hell a new God does up in Heaven and Dean can’t even watch over his shoulder to make sure it’s okay.

God. He should probably try praying to Jack, too.

He turns the radio back down. He can feel Sam shift in surprise, but to Sam’s credit, he doesn’t immediately turn to face Dean and demand to know what he’s thinking. It takes another rolling three miles before Dean works up the courage to stutter out, “Do you ever pray to him?”

Sam glances his way. “Cas?” he guesses.

“Jack,” Dean corrects quickly, and he squashes down whatever stupid emotion tries to claw it’s way out of his throat.

“Oh,” Sam says. He sounds surprised. It’s quiet for another half-mile, then he quietly admits, “Course I do. Every damn day."

Dean nods. He’d expected that. Remembers a conversation years ago, when all this angel crap started, when Sam admitted that he prays every day. Before they found out that God was an asshole with a shitty writer’s complex named Chuck. “What do you talk to him about?” Dean asks. He tries to keep his voice level. If it breaks now, he’ll never be able to stitch himself back together.

There’s a soft smile on Sam’s face. “I tell him I hope he’s happy, up there. Hope whatever he’s doing to make things better is going alright. And that I miss him. I think he’d like to know that much, at least. That he’s missed.”

“Of course he is,” Dean says gruffly. “We fuckin’. We raised that kid. Course he’s missed.”

Sam nods.

The road rolls on. The sky gets darker, and Sam’s gas station coffee gets lower and lower until it’s gone. They cross the state line and Sam rolls down his window and Dean asks, “You ever ask him for anything?”

It’s a question that’s tied to the tail end of an exhale. If the music were any louder, there’s no way Sam would have been able to hear it. But Sam’s shoulders just drop and he turns to look at Dean and says, “Yeah. I ask him for a whole hell of a lot.”

Dean nods. Tears sting his eyes, much as he hates to admit it, so he presses his foot down a bit heavier against the gas pedal and hauls ass home, and they don’t say another word about it.

  
  


* * *

  
  


He’s helping out on site at work when some rookie drops a two-by-four on Dean’s foot and blanches as Dean swears so loud it echoes around the empty walls.

“I’m so sorry,” the kid chokes out, eyes wide and terrified. Dean kicks the plank off with his foot and leans against a wall and squeezes his eyes shut so he doesn’t yell out anymore. The rookie’s only twenty-one years old, his first time working any kind of construction, and it ain’t his fault he hasn’t figured out how to walk with the planks yet. “Sir, I’m so sorry, do you need—?”

“Go get my phone,” Dean barks out, before his eyes open wide and he hurries out, in a softer tone, “Please. And grab an injury report out of my desk. Top right drawer, second folder in. If you see Morris, ask her to bring me a bag of ice.”

“Yes, sir, of course,” the kid says, and he scurries off to do as he’s told.

Dean’s foot throbs for the rest of the day. He’s pretty sure it ain’t broken, thanks to steel-toed boots that come in handy for more than just kicking the fuck outta monsters. Still, he holes up in his office for the rest day, icing his foot and sulking. Morris stops by before she leaves for her meetings, and she shoots him an amused look from the doorway.

“Can it,” Dean mutters. He can feel a tension headache forming behind his eyes.

“This is why I don’t go on site on trainin’ days,” she says, grinning. “You finish that injury report for me?”

Dean slides her the paper. “I’ll go get it checked out tonight,” he tells her, even though he probably won’t. Morris seems placated regardless. Dean likes her a lot. Tough as nails, and that’s not an expression he uses lightly. She busted her ass for the management position, and even though Dean’s only known her a month, he knows she deserves it.

“Building’s in the bones,” she’d told him wryly one night, as they shared a beer in her office. “My daddy spent his whole life puttin’ up houses. Had to stay in the family business.”

“I’ll drink to that,” he’d muttered, clinking his bottle against hers.

Now, he knows her well enough to know she won’t put up with any shit on her job sites. She runs him ragged like a dog, breathing down his neck to keep him on top of his reports, and he loves it. He loves his shitty office work. He loves helping out on the crew on the days they’re short-staffed. Loves the two paychecks Morris has pressed into his hands so far, because it’s real money that he earned himself. Morris doesn’t know his past, but the way she’d smiled at him those days makes him think she at least understands it.

Morris picks up the folded report and tucks it under her arm. “All right?” she asks him, hesitating before she goes. “You seem kinda out of it today. More than just getting the shit beat outta your foot by some new kid.”

Dean looks up at her. Her expression isn’t soft, but it’s kind. It’s that kindness that convinces him to say, honestly, “I’m worried about my kid.”

“Didn’t know you had a kid,” Morris says. If she’s in a rush, she doesn’t show it. She kicks Dean’s door shut with her boot and plops down in the seat across from him.

“Jack,” Dean says, and it all comes tumbling out of him. Bubbling over the dam like this sitting water has been still for so long. It feels important, suddenly, that he tells everyone about Jack. “Stubborn fuckin’ kid. I think he gets that from Cas, though. Hell, maybe he picked it up from me, I don’t know, but. He’s trying something new. Something I can’t help him with. And it… freaks me out.”

Morris smirks. “Think that’s just what being a parent is, Dean.”

“Yeah, well, I still feel like I got a lot to learn,” Dean mutters, and she laughs.

“You can’t keep ‘em young forever,” she reminds him. “Best advice I can offer you is to be proud you brought Jack up well enough that he found something he wants to do on his own. Not a lot of kids find something like that so easily. It’s a good thing he doesn’t need your help for this.”

Dean nods. He folds the corner of a document on his desk absentmindedly. Just so his hands have something to do. “It’s just,” he breathes out, and he lets out a frustrated laugh. “I just want to keep him safe. I guess.”

“Daddies always do,” Morris tells him, and her accent comes out thicker as she says it. Same way it always does, whenever she’s thinking about her own father. “How’s Jack’s mama handlin’ it? Cass, you said?’

“Oh, he’s,” Dean starts, then stops. He still hasn’t figured out how to tell people Cas is gone without it feeling like it’s gonna eat him alive. Hell, he hates to fucking say it, since it almost feels like he’s admitting defeat and giving up on bringing him back. Dean squeezes his eyes shut. “Cas, he’s, uh. Not in the picture anymore.”

“Oh,” Morris says. Her expression smooths out, and she says again, “ _Oh_ ,” and Dean realizes two seconds too late that it’s less about her realizing Cas died, or whatever they want to call it, and more about her realizing that Dean called Cas _he._

Panic wells up in his throat instinctively. He almost corrects himself. Almost wants to. But the panic subsides just as quickly as it rose, and Dean’s left with his own shocking realization that he doesn’t _want_ to correct it.

Morris covers Dean’s hand with her own. There’s that same kind look in her eyes when she says, “Y’know, my wife and I would love to have you over for dinner one night. If you want.”

Dean leaves work with a throbbing foot and a bleeding heart, feeling lighter than he has in years. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


Jack visits for the first time on a Sunday, two months after everything went down.

It’s kind of ironic, honestly. Sam doesn’t laugh when Dean points this out.

“Hey, Jack,” Sam says warmly, and he pulls Jack against his chest and wraps his arms around him and Dean feels those damn tears prickling at his eyes again for no fucking reason. Jack’s beaming when he pulls away.

“Sam,” he responds, in that proud little voice of his.

“Didn’t think we’d see you again,” Dean jokes, though there’s a heavy reality in the statement that he can’t seem to shake. He’d watched Jack walk away from them and was certain that the world would go back to praying to a God who didn’t set foot on earth. The thought made him feel like shit, but. He’s never been so glad to be wrong.

“Hello, Dean,” Jack says, and shit, the kid’s always reminded him too much of Cas, but this is the fuckin’ straw that breaks the camel’s back, and Dean watches helplessly as his resolve crumbles around him and he stumbles to his knees. 

“Whoa, hey!” Sam shouts, and both he and Jack lurch forward and grab him by the shoulders before he can fully hit the ground.

“Fuck,” Dean gasps out, and he squeezes his eyes shut. He stands on shaky knees with the help of his brother and the kid. Neither of them complain when he leans heavily against them. In all honesty, he can’t even explain what the hell just happened. All he knows is that his feet have been carrying this weight on his shoulders for too damn long.

Jack’s grip is tight on his arm. Dean looks at the kid’s face, and the question he’s refused to ask is on the tip of his tongue. Jack looks back at him.

“Let’s sit down,” Jack suggests.

Dean tightens the hold he has on Jack’s jacket. He doesn’t recognize his own voice when he grits out, “C’mon, kid.”

Jack bites his lip. It’s a strangely human motion. “We have to talk about it,” he says, more firmly now, and he tugs Dean towards the table.

They sit around the edge of it. Jack’s fingers trace the carved names on the surface with reverence. There’s a lump in Dean’s throat that won’t go away even after he swallows the glass of water Sam puts down in front of him in two big gulps. 

“We, uh,” Dean says. Jack looks up at him. He clears his throat and continues, “We thought it was appropriate. To make sure the whole family was on there.”

Jack beams again. It’s relieving to Dean, honestly, that this kid can go out there and kill God by himself and take over in all his own God-like glory, and still be so visibly thrilled at the idea of belonging to someone’s family.

“You’ve never asked,” Jack says mildly. It’s not an accusation. Just a fact.

“No,” Dean admits, and Sam glances at him surprise. “I don’t know, man, I just. Didn’t know how.”

Jack nods. “Many people don’t know how to ask me for what they really want,” he tells them. His head tilts slightly to the left. “It’s. Interesting, hearing their prayers. I’ve never experienced anything like it before. So many of them pray to me asking for things they don’t realize they already have. None of them know how to ask for what they want.”

“Do you give it to them?” Dean asks. He can’t help the curiosity that boils him on the inside. Like some desperate part of him needs confirmation that Jack is doing better with this job title than Chuck ever did.

“I do,” Jack says. “When I am able. And I… try to watch over those, that I am not able to grant. Find something else to send their way.”

Sam’s voice is sad as he says, “Sounds like you’re busy.”

“I am,” Jack admits. He quirks a small, smug smile that Dean recognizes. He’s seen it on his own face in the mirror more times than he can count. “But there is always time for family, right?”

“Long as we’re around,” Dean promises.

Jack grins. “Longer than that, I’m sure.”

That gets a laugh out of them all, and a grin that stretches from ear to ear out of Jack. It’s nice, to be able to sit around this table again and laugh like they haven’t lost what they’ve lost. Dean misses it. Misses waking up and shuffling passed Jack, sitting shock-still at the table, misses ruffling the kid’s hair and grinning when Jack huffed like a teenager and stood to go fix it. He misses Sam setting the table for four, even though half of them didn’t really need to eat. Hell, he even misses Cas hogging the coffee pot each morning, curled around it like a snake and glaring at anyone who tried to take it away.

For the first time in two months, Dean’s chest doesn’t burst into flames as he lets himself think about Cas.

“So we haven’t asked for it,” he says, conversationally. His gaze drops to the table. To their names carved in wood. To their family carved out of unconventional means. “But. If we did. Could you… do it?”

Reluctantly, Dean raises his gaze.

Jack’s expression is purposefully blank. “I’ve tried,” he admits, and Dean’s hope plummets. Jack carries on. “I’ve tried to wake him, like I did before. But he won’t hear me.”

“What do you mean, he _won’t_ hear you?” Sam asks.

“I mean I think he is ignoring me on purpose,” Jack tells them. “I’m not certain he can hear me, but I think that even if he can, he has convinced himself not to listen. It’s going to take something a lot more powerful than me to wake him up.”

Incredulously, Dean asks, “The hell is more powerful than God?’

Jack looks right at him. “Love,” he says simply.

  
  
  
  
  
  


Love, in Dean’s humble opinion, is a crock of shit.

He ain’t ever been worthy of it. Busted his ass so that his daddy would be proud just to earn himself eternal damnation for his efforts. Loved Sammy too much he fucked their lives up over and over so that he wouldn’t have to walk this earth without him. Treated Jack like shit, loved him too little too late. He didn’t know the right way to love Cassie. Closest he ever got was Lisa, honestly, and even that went south faster than birds migrating in the winter.

Well. Closest he ever got _used_ to be Lisa. It sure as hell ain’t now.

Cas said he was worthy. And what the hell does that count for, now that he’s gone? Now that he's left the weight of his heavy confession in the palms of Dean’s hands and in the bloody print on the jacket Dean still hasn’t washed. All that Dean has is the echoing words of Cas’s dying confession to haunt him better than any damn ghost ever could. And what’s it fucking count for, anyway?

Jack tells him, “It counts for everything.”

Dean shakes so hard the table moves with him, but neither Jack nor Sam complains. They don’t say a damn word about it. Sammy just looks at him with those wide, too-knowing eyes, and Dean feels his insides start eating themselves.

“Why didn’t you tell me what he said?” Sam asks, quietly.

His hackles rise. “Cause it wasn’t meant for you to hear,” he says sharply.

“Dean,” Jack says, calm and placating. 

“Wasn’t trying to say it was,” Sam promises, raising his hands. “It was for you, Dean, no one doubts that. It’s just.” His eyes go soft. Not quite sad, but something close. Something Dean doesn’t have the words for. “You could have told me.”

Dean pushes back against his chair, making a scraping sound as the legs drag against the floor, and he stands and lurches away from the table, away from Sam, away from Jack, away from that _stupid_ carving of Cas’s name that doesn’t do jack shit to honor him the way he deserves. 

“Where are you going?” Jack asks. Sam puts his hand on Jack’s shoulder.

“I just need a minute,” he snaps, and he storms towards his room.

The door slamming gives him a moment of satisfaction, a flickering beat in his chest that dims as soon as the guilt slips in. He doesn’t like snapping at Jack. Doesn’t like snapping at anyone, anymore. He’s damn tired is what it is. Doesn’t want to yell. Doesn’t want to make things harder than they already are. Dean slumps against the door and sinks to the ground, covering his face with his hands.

What next? Hasn’t that been the damn question of the year. They’ve done what they need to. Beat the fuck out of God. Saved the world again. Dean’s got himself a damn job, and a good one at that. He’s got invitations to dinner. He’s got cases, rarely, when him and Sammy find something close by that doesn’t sound too exhausting to do. But he’s tired. And he wants _out._

God, he wants out. He wants a _house._ The bunker is home but it’s never been the life he dreamed of. It’s not the two-story place he imagines, with an island in the kitchen and a huge ass bathtub and a garage big enough to hold Baby and a swing on the porch. It ain’t a place where futures begin. It’s just a place that is.

The tastes of it he’s gotten over the years. The glimpses of that apple-pie life that he got a whiff of before they breezed on past him. None of them stuck. It never felt more important than the job. Then the job went and changed on him over the years. Got harder and more complicated. Had a hell of a lot more death than he anticipated. And he’s been doing this for long that for a while there, he forgot anything else was an option. Fuck if he don’t want it, though.

The thing that scares the living shit outta him the most, though, is that he doesn’t want any of that if it’s not with—

Dean squeezes his eyes shut. It does him no good to struggle to admit it now. Especially if it’s gonna be up to him to fix this shit.

So fuck it. He doesn’t want the house, or the kitchen or the swing or the bathtub or even a damn cat and the allergy pills that come with it unless Cas is with him for the whole damn kit and caboodle. 

  
He’s been a fucking idiot. Shit, he has been his whole life, but it’s never come back to bite him in the ass like this. He never even entertained the thought that this might be something Cas would want too. And ain’t that a kick in the balls? Cas said it himself. _The one thing I really want is something I can never have._

His words, that confession, it had felt like a weight that Dean would carry on his back until the day he died. Cas loved him so completely that he sacrificed his own life for Dean.

Now Dean has to love him right enough to bring him back.

He used to think he wasn’t built for a love like this. Hell, he _wasn’t._ This kind of love was never a weight his bones were strong enough to carry. But damn, if there isn’t something to be said about the fact that Cas rebuilt every atom of his being—Cas painstakingly arranged every muscle and ever vein and every goddamn freckle until Dean was exactly the person he used to be.

Dean was made by Cas. He was made _for_ Cas. And that, he decides, counts for everything.

“Okay,” he says finally, after leaving his room and returning to Sam and Jack. He looks Jack straight in the eye. “What do you need me to do?”


	2. from the top

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :/ i don't know how to shut up so this is gonna be three chapters instead of two sowwy
> 
> once again i owe sabi and cait my life for beta-reading this and holding my hand as i threw a fit literally every other sentence they are gods among men i dont deserve them xoxo
> 
> i feel like it's obvious that this ignores everything that happened after 15x18 but since i mention the vague occurances of ep19 i do want to say i decided to play along with that but change it a bit since i thought it was stupid they left chuck alive<3 ANYWAY thats all hope u enjoy

_and lot’s wife, of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been. but she did look back, and i love her for that, because it was so human. so she was turned into a pillar of salt. so it goes._

  
  
  
  


It’s a very old story, Dean thinks. Love.

The way people wish for it. The way people fall for it. The things people do in the name of it.

Dean only knew one type of love, and it was the intense, protective type that got him killed more times than it should have and nearly tore his family apart. It was the damned kind of love that made him defend a deadbeat dad because that’s what you do when you’re family. And that’s all it ever was. Family love. Dean didn’t need anything other than that. Hell, he used to make fun of the dumb fucks that got themselves all twisted up over some chick because it seemed so damn incomprehensible that there’d ever be anyone he prioritized over his family. 

A lot of things changed over the years. Truthfully, Dean thinks, he may be the thing that changed the most.

Love, though. Love hasn’t changed one damn bit.

Story’s as old as it gets. Two people meet. One of them falls. If they’re lucky, they both do. If they’re extra lucky, they find a way to make it work and choose each other over and over again until the day one or both of them die. Nothing too romantic about it unless you dig around in the details and look at what you find.

In Dean’s details, he finds a few things. A handprint on his shoulder. A dying confession. Names carved into a table. The beaming smile of their son. Loyalty, no matter how blind. Faith out of a faithless man. Sacrifices. Pain. Love. God, so much damn _love._

“It saved you,” Jack tells him. He stands at the foot of Dean’s bed, and he places a soothing hand on Dean’s shoulder. “Castiel’s love.”

Dean exhales a shaky breath. He wipes his hands on his jeans. Sam, by the grace of God or some shit, decided to leave them alone for this bit. Dean’s grateful for it. He’s not sure what the fuck he’s doing, yet, but he knows it’ll be easiest to do alone. “What if I don’t do it right?”

“Do what right?” Jack says. “The prayer?”

“No, the,” Dean starts. He squeezes his eyes shut, just for a moment. He hates that even after everything, the words seem damn near impossible to get out.

Jack makes a noise of understanding. Smart fuckin’ kid. Still so much to learn but so damn smart when it comes to family matters. Dean’s positive that Jack learned that from Cas. Carefully, Jack says, “You’re worried you don’t love him enough.”

“Not enough,” Dean murmurs. He writhes his hands together in his lap. “Just. Hell. What if it ain’t the right way?”

“May I say something?” Jack asks, like he’s not literal God. Dean laughs a little and gives Jack a tired, amused grin, clapping his hand on Jack’s shoulder as he takes the spot next to Dean. “How can you love someone the wrong way?”

Dean’s expression twists. “Hell, kid. I don’t wanna be the one to answer that for you.”

“No, no,” Jack says quickly. “I don’t mean in general. I see the world now, Dean. I see the many ways that love has people suffering. I know how love can be wrong. What I mean is. How can _you_ love someone the wrong way? You are many things, and unloving is not one of them.”

The weight of that rests heavy, but comforting, on Dean’s shoulders. It shocks him how much it means to him. Jack’s belief in him. It makes his chest swell with pride. Like if he’s got the kid convinced he ain’t half bad, then he’s doing alright. Dean claps a hand on Jack’s shoulder.

“I miss you ‘round here, you know?” Dean tells him. Jack grins.

“I know,” Jack says. “I miss it around here, too.”

He’s just a kid, Dean thinks. And that’s one of the things that freaks him out the most. Jack’s just a kid, and he’s _Dean’s_ kid, and he’s in charge of the freakin’ world now. “Jack, you know, uh. You can come back any time. Doesn’t just have to be when the big things are happening. We’re still your family. So. Whenever you wanna come back here, you can, you know?”

And god, Dean feels about a thousand years old from the way Jack rolls his eyes and smiles at him, but he’s starting to get that this is just what it feels like when you watch someone grow up. “Don’t worry, I won’t forget that,” Jack promises. He grins, bumping his shoulder against Dean’s as he adds, “ _Dad._ ”

“Oh, hell,” Dean groans, but he ducks his head before Jack can see the way his eyes well with tears. He’s so damn emotional lately, and he knows sure as hell it’s gonna get worse before it gets better. Jack doesn’t say anything as Dean wipes halfheartedly at his eyes; he just waits patiently for Dean to sit back up and say, “Alright, enough of the Lifetime family movie moments. We have an angel to rescue.”

“We do,” Jack agrees, and that’s all it takes, really.

All Dean knows is that Cas is sleeping. It’s what things in the Empty do. Sleep, and remember. Last time, Jack was able to wake Cas up just by calling out to him. Just by _wanting_ him back. Cas never talked about it, but Dean knows that it meant the world to Cas. Knows that was the turning point for Cas and Jack that ended up altering all of their lives. For the better, Dean thinks.

No. Dean knows.

So all it took the first time was the desire of some kid more powerful than the Empty to wake Cas up the first time, but it’s different now that Jack’s essentially God, and Dean knows Cas well enough to assume that the bastard is stubbornly staying asleep out of some dumbass need to make a martyr out of himself.

Jack said it himself. What comes next is just… love.

Love. To save Cas. Dean thinks he’s capable of that much, at least.

“You could start by praying,” Jack suggests. “Castiel always loved it when you prayed to him.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


So that’s where Dean starts. With a prayer.

Jack leaves him alone. Dean slides off the bed and onto his knees. Thinks he’ll make a better case that way. Begging, and all that. Pleading with a voice he’s not sure can hear him. The definition of faith. Dean raises his gaze to the ceiling and takes a deep breath.

“Dammit, Cas,” he starts, because it’s habit. It makes him smile, albeit a bit sadly. “Betcha thought I’d stop doing this after you sacrificed your lily-white ass to save the world, huh? Sorry, bud. ‘Fraid you’re gonna be stuck with me for at least a little while longer.”

He pauses. Nothing feels different.

_Fuck._ Dean closes his eyes and drops his head. “Shit, man. I don’t even know if you can hear me now. Don’t know if you’ve heard any of the last ones I’ve sent your way either, but. I haven’t stopped. Probably won’t stop even if we rescue your sorry mug, to be honest. But I think you’d like that. Knowing that I still try to talk to you after all this time. 

There’s a lump in his throat that feels impossible to swallow.

“You gotta wake up, Cas,” Dean whispers, and he hates the way his voice breaks but he shoulders on anyway because that’s what he’s always done. What he’s always had to do. “Because I can’t. I… I don’t _want_ to do this without you. Any of it. Not the hunts we still take. Not the research. Fuck, Cas, I don’t even wanna walk into the kitchen every morning knowing I’m not gonna see you curled over a bowl of cereal at the table. It sucks, okay? It sucks. And I… I miss you, man.”

He knows what comes next. What _has_ to come next. But damn him, he ain't ready to say it. Or fuck, maybe he is, but he knows sure as hell that he can’t say what comes next unless it’s face to face. Cas deserves that, Dean thinks. Maybe they both do.

“Wake up,” Dean says again. Puts his whole soul into it. If Cas is gonna hear it from anyone, it’s gonna be from the soul he rebuilt from scratch. “Please, Cas. Wake up so I can tell you to your face. Just. Hurry up.”

A beat.

“ _Please,_ Cas.”

Nothing changes. The room stays quiet. The world keeps turning.

Dean stands up, mutters _damn it_ quietly under his breath, and kicks an empty trash can so hard it rattles around the room as he stomps out.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Things stay the same. At least, as consistent as they can for two brothers who spent their lives haunting monsters and coming back to life after they keep getting killed. Sam holes up in the library, like he expects the answer to be in some book. Dean goes to work. He comes home, and Jack’s there for dinner.

That, at least, takes a weight off of his chest that he hadn’t known was there. Coming home covered in sawdust instead of sulfur and finding Jack waiting for him patiently. He doesn’t stay the night, like he used to, but. He comes for dinner. That helps.

Dean prays every day. He never stops. It gets so bad he wakes up with the prayer already started on his lips. He mutters it on his lunch break. He whispers it as his lips curl around a bottle of beer at the end of the night before he falls asleep.

Another month passes. Dean hates that the most. That time keeps going on. His crew finishes the house they’ve been working on and moves to another jobsite about a mile east. Morris starts to join Dean for lunch, on the days when she’s free. Sometimes her wife is there, too. Dean likes them both. So that helps, too.

Jack misses three dinners in a row before Dean finally snaps.

“We ought to get him a cell phone,” Sam sighs, as Dean paces around the room furiously.

“He’s too young for a cell phone,” Dean snaps.

Sam levels him with an unimpressed look. “He’s running the Heavens now, Dean, I think he can handle a cell phone.”

“I don’t care, he’s still my friggin’ kid!” Dean yells. “He ain’t getting a damn cell phone!”

“How would you recommend we get a hold of him then?” Sam says calmly. Dean wants to throw the stupid vase of flowers on the kitchen table at his stupid, big head.

After a moment, Dean stops pacing. He feels about a hundred years old as he puts his hands on his hips like his mom used to do when she reprimanded him, and barks out, “Jack! Get your ass down here!”

“I already tried that,” Sam mutters.

Dean scoffs. “Yeah? Well, I have a better track record at getting people to show up when I call.”

Sam’s bitch-face would be funnier if Dean weren’t in the middle of a fullblown freakout about the whereabouts of his _fuckin’ kid._

“Jack Kline!” Dean yells.

He turns around in relief when he hears the telltale signs of Jack’s arrival.

“Is everything okay?” Jack asks, and that’s all he gets out before Dean’s stepping forward and crushing him into an angry, relieved hug. “Dean?”

“Where the _fuck_ have you been?” Dean asks, but there’s only concern in his tone. Dean could almost forget he was pissed off at all.

Jack still looks confused when Dean finally pulls away, but doesn’t protest as Dean takes his face between his hands and inspects him for any sign of injury. It’s hard, with Jack being able to heal himself at any given moment, but Dean checks anyway. “I’ve been researching,” Jack says slowly. There’s doubt in his voice when he asks, “Is that not okay?”

“It’s more than okay,” Sam reassures him. “We’ve just been worried, is all.”

“You haven’t been to dinner,” Dean adds on.

Jack’s frowning. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it was a big deal.”

“We haven’t seen you in three days, Jack!” Dean bursts out, and Sam claps a hand on his shoulder to get him to stop before he says something he’ll regret. Good ol’ Sammy. Dean takes a deep breath before he continues, “It’s not a big deal if you don’t come. It’s a big deal if you disappear and don’t tell us about it. Especially since this family’s already down a man.”

This, it seems, is the opening that Jack needed. His expression quickly changes, growing excited as he starts to explain, “Yes, but that’s why I was away! I was doing research to help us bring back Castiel.”

“You find anything?” Sam asks.

“A lead,” Jack says, nodding. “A girl, in Des Moines, Iowa.”

Dean straightens up. “You found a lead about the Empty in Iowa?”

“Not a lead about the Empty,” Jack states, and Dean’s head feels like it’s spinning. “A lead about you.”

“What—” Sam starts.

“What do you mean, a lead about me?” Dean demands. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Dean,” Sam says tiredly.

Jack reaches into his jacket pocket and fishes out a beaded rosary. Everything Dean could think of to say stops flat as he catches sight of it. “Do you remember Gabriela?”

“Where’d you get that?” Dean asks.

“From your room,” Jack says honestly, then he winces. “Sorry if I wasn’t supposed to go in there.”

The name, and the fact that she’s from Des Moines, finally clicks in Sam’s head. He steps forward, eyes wide. “Gabriela? That girl who survived the haunting on that campus last month? What does she have to do with anything?”

“Nothing, normally,” Jack says. “Except she’s been praying very loudly.”

“For me,” Dean guesses. 

Jack smiles. “I heard your name. That’s why I went to investigate.” The upturn of his mouth fades slowly, and makes Dean’s chest ache. “I didn’t realize I’d been gone for three days though, I’m sorry. I was trying to piece everything together.”

“Did you piece anything together?” Sam says, at the same time Dean says, “It’s okay, Jack.” They share a small look before turning back to look at the kid.

“I will let you know if I’m going to miss dinner again,” Jack says firmly.

Sam nods. “We believe you.”

When Dean reaches for the rosary, Jack hands it over without any protest. It feels the same as it did when Gabriela pressed it into his hands for the first time a few weeks ago. Well-used. Loved. Important.

“She’s been praying for you to find peace,” Jack says. “The man with the sad eyes who believes in something. She’s worried about you.”

“She’s nineteen,” Dean says gruffly.

“And she’s got a good heart,” Jack points out, like it changes anything. Hell, maybe it does. “She gave you this because she knew you needed it. She’s still hoping you’ve found what you were looking for.”

Sam looks at the rosary as Dean runs his fingers over the beads. “And Gabriela. She can help us bring Cas back?”

“I think she already has,” Jack says. “We’ve gotten very close, but Castiel is still asleep. He hasn’t been able to hear you, Dean.”

“I’ve yelled myself hoarse, kid,” Dean mutters, hurt.

Jack looks at him like he knows every thought that’s racing through Dean’s head right now. Dean tries not to dwell on the fact that he probably does. “It’s not you, Dean, it’s okay,” Jack reassures him, which makes him feel like crap all over again. Ain’t he the parent in this relationship? “It’s the Empty. I’m not sure it recognizes love, so I don’t think it’s getting through.”

Dean scoffs. “Well, that’s just friggin’ great. The shadow realm doesn’t recognize love. Love is more powerful than God but not strong enough to sneak past the bodyguard at the gates of hell for angels.”

“Dean,” Sam says softly, and Dean’s mouth snaps shut with an audible noise. “So the Empty doesn’t recognize love. What does it recognize?’

“Order,” Jack answers. He points to the rosary in Dean’s hands. “Tradition.”

And all at once, it hits Dean what he has to do. What it’s gonna take for the Empty to let him in. Jack’s already looking at him when Dean finally glances up, and Dean’s sure Jack knows what he’s about to ask just by the expression on the kid’s face alone.

“That’s what I have to do, isn’t it?” Dean asks.

Jack pauses for just a moment, and then he nods.

“What?” Sam demands.

The room is quiet. Faintly, Dean can hear the sounds of a clock ticking somewhere in the distance. The bunker is still, save for the three breaths waiting to be let out. Dean says, “I’m gonna pray that the Empty lets me in.”

  
  


* * *

  
  


There are a few things Dean knows for sure. Definite ways to gank a few monsters. The best way to grill a burger. The best soundtrack order for the best transitions of his favorite Zeppelin songs. His love for his family.

The most important right now, though, is that there’s someone out there that cares about him enough to bring him back every time he bites it.

He’s hoping the universe will grant him a break one last time.

“You aren’t dying, Dean, stop,” Sam sighs, rolling his eyes at Dean’s dramatics. “Jack’s just gonna stop your heart rate so it’ll be _like_ you’re dead. He’s gonna be here keeping you alive the whole time.”

“You wanna be the one to have your heart paused?” Dean asks.

Sam makes a smug face. “Wouldn’t work if it was me.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“Hello,” Jack says cheerfully, as he walks into the room with a tray in his hands. He sets it down on Dean’s dresser. There’s a few items on it, some that Dean can’t see, but he stops caring when Jack presses a glass of whiskey into his hands. “Figured you might want this before you go under. For the nerves.”

“Smart kid,” Dean mutters, and he drinks it gratefully.

Sam’s fidgeting in the spot where he sits next to Dean. In a few minutes, Dean’s gonna lay down in this bed with the rosary in his hands and he’s gonna pray his ass off as Jack sticks him in a coma. Dean thinks it’s a little bit laughable that Sam seems more nervous than he feels himself. Dean knows it’s probably got more to do with the fact that Sam doesn’t have a single part to play in this than anything else. “Would you stop bouncing your damn legs?” Dean snaps. “You’re gonna give me a heart attack before Jack kills me.”

“Not killing you,” Sam and Jack say in unison. Jack beams brightly at Sam, evidently proud of their shared retort at Dean’s expense.

“Are you feeling alright?” Jack asks. “We’ll want to start soon.”

Dean raises his glass. “Feeling friggin’ fantastic. Let’s get this show on the road.”

The room is quiet, as Dean shuffles back on the bed and lays his head against his pillow. Sam presses the rosary into his hands and Dean grips it tight between his fingers. He holds the cross right over his heart. He’s not sure if it’s right, but the sentiment feels appropriate.

Faintly, he can hear Jack pulling up a chair next to him. He doesn’t see what Sam’s doing, not after Sam gets off the bed and leaves him alone. In the quiet, all Dean can think about is the pit of anxiety in his stomach that seems to be eating him alive. He swallows thickly and tells it to shut the hell up.

He’s not nervous about this. He trusts Jack. He’s sure this’ll work.

It’s just. Oh, hell.

Dean feels fucking nervous about _seeing_ Cas.

He’s grateful, then, when he feels Jack’s hands cover his forearm and his bicep. “Start the prayer now, Dean,” Jack tells him, so Dean squeezes his eyes shut and starts to mouth the words that have become a damn habit at this point.

Jack is steady. His hands are warm. Uncomfortably warm, but only for a minute, before the warmth spreads through Dean’s whole body. He feels safe, after that. Tired. His heart rate slows down, and Dean knows it’s working. He tightens his grip around the rosary and remembers, at nearly the last second, to pray to the Empty, too. He knocks on the door and waits to be let in.

Before he slips under entirely, Dean has one last clear thought. One last sentence that pushes him through the doors of the Empty and into the abyss.

_Cas,_ Dean prays. _Wake up._

  
  
  
  
  
  


Castiel’s eyes open.

Dean blinks, and suddenly he’s there. Sitting across from Cas and watching, slack-jawed, as Cas startles awake and meets his gaze. There’s a moment where they just stare at one another, stunned, before Cas’s expression smooths out and his lips curl into an easy smile. “Hello, Dean,” Cas says.

Dean’s shoulders sag in relief at those two damn simple words. “Cas,” he breathes out. “Is this it? Are you awake?”

“If that’s what you want to call it,” Cas says, amused. He doesn’t look away from Dean as he sits up. The way he rubs at his eyes is so human that for a second Dean’s heart clenches.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Cas sighs. “You always ask so many questions.”

Dean counters, “You never give me a straight answer.”

And Cas laughs, a small, unbidden thing. Dean pockets it and holds the sound of it close to his chest, afraid he won’t hear much of it again. Especially if this doesn’t work. “I suppose that’s fair,” Cas muses, and he pulls himself out of bed silently.

Bed. Cas was in a _bed._

“Where are we?” Dean asks. “Is this—are we—?”

“This is my dream, Dean,” calls Cas, unabashedly stripping out of his shirt, like he doesn’t even give a damn that Dean’s there. Dean turns away sharply, cheeks burning, and stares at a familiar wall. 

Dean says, “You dream of the bunker?” and meets Cas’s eye when Cas returns to his line of sight.

“I dream of home,” Cas tells him.

It’s strange, seeing Cas out of his normal suit and tie, in a way that Dean’s never managed to get used to despite the fact that he’s seen it more times than he can count now. Cas should look strange in a pair of oversized sweatpants and a stretched-out sleep shirt, but he mostly just looks comfortable. Dean stares a bit too long at his chest, flushing when Cas catches him.

“Is that—are those my clothes?” Dean realizes, voice raising in surprise.

Cas glances down, brows furrowed. There’s a downturn to his mouth that, somehow, looks more out of place than the clothes on his body. “Yes,” he says with another sigh. “I’m limited to my memories here, you know. Or, well. I suppose you don’t, since you’re technically just a memory, too.”

In an instant, Dean’s blood runs cold. He stands up so fast the chair he was sitting on topples back. “Cas, I ain’t a memory.”

“I know it doesn’t feel like it,” Cas says dismissively. He turns back to the bed, _his_ bed, from his memories in the _bunker,_ and gets started on straightening the sheets. Like they aren’t in the middle of something fuckin’ huge, here. “But this is how it goes for me. Reliving things. Remembering how I would have done things different. From the looks of this, I’m going to guess this particular memory was during the time I was human.”

“Which time?” Dean asks.

Cas shoots him a sharp look. Deadpan, he says, “Ha. Ha.”

Fuck, it’s overwhelming how easy it is for them to slip back into that. Like nothing’s changed at all. Scares the hell out of Dean that it’s that easy for him to forget everything else that’s going on in favor of trying to rile Cas up.

“I think this is the time after all my brothers and sisters fell,” Cas continues on. He drops his gaze, voice filled with guilt. There’s a quieter cadence in his tone as he says, “The very beginning. Right before—”

“I kicked you out,” Dean realizes.

There’s a sad smile on Cas’s face that breaks Dean’s heart more than anything else. “Yes,” he agrees.

“This is what you dream about?” Dean whispers, horrified. Furious at himself for doing this to Cas, and angry that it’s something Cas tortures himself over now. He’d take it back in a heartbeat, if he could. Dean knew that the second the door closed behind Cas.

“I don’t exactly get to choose where I spend time,” Cas muses. “Downfall of eternal punishment, and all that.”

“You’re snarky when you’re dead.”

“And you’re full of backtalk today,” Cas retorts. He straightens, after fixing the final corner of his bed, and grins at Dean proudly.

Dean’s heart clenches. “I don’t remember hangin’ out and watching you make your damn bed in the morning.”

Cas tilts his head. “You wouldn’t remember it,” he says mildly, because he still thinks Dean is a friggin’ figment of his imagination. “It’s not a memory for you. You just think it’s happening right now.”

“Cas, that’s what I’m trying to tell you, this _is_ happening right now,” Dean says. “I’m the real Dean, _your_ Dean.”

“Every version of Dean in here is my Dean,” Cas responds. Dean wants to grab him by the shoulders and shake him until he understands. “I don’t remember any other version of you, you know, so every version of you is the only Dean I know.”

“Cas,” Dean snaps, exasperated.

“Dean,” Cas parrots back. Cas steps forward, hand reaching for Dean’s shoulder, and his expression closes off when Dean flinches back out of his reach. Before Cas can even touch him. Dean watches, guilt heavy in his stomach, as Cas’s face falls when he realizes Dean’s pulled away from him. “Oh.”

“Cas,” Dean says again, but his tone is a lot softer this time.

“You’re dead?” Cas asks, and in his voice is a small shake that tells Dean he’s pissed.

Dean huffs, breathing heavy, and shakes his head. “No,” he states. “Well. I mean, not really. I’m in, like. A coma, I guess.”

“Dean!” Cas gapes. “Why?”

“ _Why?_ ” Dean says back, incredulous. “Because you weren’t listening to my freakin’ prayers, Cas! You weren’t listening to Jack. So I had to drag my sorry ass down here to get you to wake the fuck up.”

Cas’s mouth opens and closes a few times. In any other instance, Dean might think it’s kind of funny, the way he seems at a loss for words. Right now, he really just wants to hear Cas fucking talk. After what has to be at least a millenia, Cas’s mouth finally snaps shut, and he shoots Dean a sharp glare before turning on his heel and stomping out of his room.

“Man, what the hell?” Dean whines. He jogs after him.

“You shouldn’t have come,” Cas says shortly. Great, so now Cas wants to be a martyr _and_ he’s pissed off at Dean. Way to fucking go, Winchester.

“If you’re angling for an apology, you sure aren’t getting one from me,” Dean snaps.

Cas comes to an abrupt stop, and Dean barely catches himself before he goes crashing into Cas as he whirls around with eyes blazing. “What part of sacrifice is so damn hard for you Winchesters to understand? I’m here because I have to be. Because my being here is protecting you. Protecting _Jack._ If I leave, the Empty will come after him instead.”

“No, it’s,” Dean starts. It dawns on him, slowly, everything they’ve got to catch Cas up on. How so much and so little has happened ever since he’s been gone. “Things are different now, Cas. Jack’s fine. He’s safe.”

“I don’t see how that can be, Dean,” Cas mutters. 

Dean swallows thickly and raises his head to the ceiling. It’s not the bunker’s ceiling, like he’s expecting it to be, but he isn’t surprised to see rolling expanses of stars. Of course this is what Cas dreams of. “Chuck’s dead,” Dean murmurs. “Jack stripped him from his powers and I popped a bullet between his eyes.”

Cas’s eyes are wide when Dean finally looks back at him. Disbelief.

Guilt washes over Dean like some kind of fucked up baptismal water. He says, “I’m sorry.”

“For killing God?” Cas asks. The corner of his mouth quirks up into a small, almost unnoticed smile. “You don’t have to apologize to me for that. You know I would have done it myself, if I were alive.”

“Still,” Dean says, and he shrugs. “He was your father. Maybe not ever much of a dad, but.”

“But,” Cas agrees. His eyes are sad. Dean thinks they nearly always look this sad. “Still, Dean. Even if he is gone. How could that change everything else? You’ve got to tell Jack to stop looking for me. I don’t want the Empty to take him.

“Which is why we weren’t letting him even think about this place ‘til he went off and stripped God of all his mighty powers,” Dean retorts. “You think I’d let him even think about coming near here if I thought he’d get taken again?”

Cas looks guilty.

“He’s my kid, too, you know,” Dean says, and his tone is a lot softer now.

“I know he is,” Cas promises, and he starts to walk again, leaving Dean no choice but to follow.

They reach a crossroads in the bunker. Two halls meeting. Dean’s not surprised when Cas slows to a stop again, right in the center. It might even be the most appropriate place for them to be. Irony, it seems, isn’t lost in the dream world.

“I prayed to you,” Dean blurts out, unbidden. He’s not sure where the need to say it came from.

But it makes Cas smile. So that makes it worth it. “I wondered if you would.”

“Could you hear me?” Dean asks. He hates the hopeful feeling in his chest.

“The Empty isn’t too keen on letting prayers in here,” Cas tells him. His tone is apologetic, like it’s his fault that the fucking dark side of the moon doesn’t let prayers reach angel ears after they’ve kicked the bucket.

Dean lets out a small laugh. More a huff of air than anything else. “It let me in,” he points out.

“Must have been a strong prayer,” Cas comments.

Dean thinks about the rosary in his hands, in his body back on Earth. He thinks about his brother and his son in the room with him, watching over him as he tries to bring the last piece of their family home. Thinks about the times he prayed before, and how even though his whole gut went into it, it wasn’t enough. Love, Jack had said. Love is more powerful than God. Dean’s sure it’s true. He’s here, isn’t he? But he needed them. Needed their love for Cas too, even if it ain’t the same as what he feels. Needed Gabriela’s love for God. Needed the sanctity of order to combine with the reverence of love.

That’s what made it work. All of it. Every piece of the puzzle. Family. Tradition. Trust. Belief. All of it got him here. All of it gave him Cas in the first place.

“You’re an idiot, Cas,” Dean says, and he gets a hand on Cas’s shoulder and tugs him in for the kiss they’ve both been waiting for their whole damn lives.

It’s messy. Cas is too damn surprised and Dean too damn eager for them to make it right the first time, but it takes less than a second for Cas to get with the program and step a little closer, and that’s really all they needed to fix the angle. Dean’s mouth slots over Cas’s better. Perfectly, even. Like his lips were fuckin’ made to kiss Cas.

And after that, it’s easy to get lost in it. To just enjoy the fact that it’s Cas’s mouth working against Dean’s, kissing him like he’s wanted to be kissed for longer than he can remember, smiling so hard it nearly breaks them apart. Cas grabs a hold of Dean’s jacket with both of his hands to keep them close. Dean doesn’t let go of Cas’s shoulders.

“I never thought,” Cas says, when Dean finally pulls away. He’s not sure if he counts as human or ghost here, but his lungs still feel pretty damn human either way. Cas looks pleased that Dean’s struggling to catch his breath.

“I know you never thought,” Dean grumbles. “I remember your damn speech.”

Cas groans, burying his face in Dean’s jacket. It’s almost unbearable, how fucking cute that is. Dean has to bite his cheek to keep himself from doing something stupid like blurting out those three words right now. Around a sigh, Cas says, “I’m never gonna live that down, am I?”

“Oh, no, we’re gonna talk about that for years,” Dean tells him. “Decades, if we’re lucky. I’m never gonna stop talking about it.”

“Great,” Cas deadpans.

Dean jostles him by the shoulder. “Hey. I mean it. I want decades, Cas. I’m fuckin’ done, man. Done with never catching a break. I got a real job. We’ve been eating in nearly every night. We barely take hunts anymore. I don’t wanna go back to the way things were before. I don’t think we can leave the life, but. I think we can at least get a foot out the door.”

There’s a brilliant smile on Cas’s face that nearly makes Dean forget what he was saying at all. His brain feels fuzzy when Cas smooths his hands over Dean’s chest. “You got a job?”

“Oh, hell,” Dean groans. “That _would_ be the part you’d latch onto.”

“Does this mean we can get a cat?” Cas asks.

And Dean means to say _no way in hell can we get a friggin’ cat, are you nuts,_ but his mouth opens and his brain stops and what comes out instead is, “Does this mean you’re gonna wake up?”

“Now who’s the idiot?” Cas asks. “You came for me. Of course I’m going to wake up.”

“Of course,” Dean repeats faintly, because his head is spinning and his chest feels light and nothing about this feels completely real, if he’s being honest. “Do you even realize the shit you say to me, man? You got any idea what you do to me?”

Cas is grinning, an obnoxious ear-to-ear thing that makes Dean’s entire body feel like it’s on fire. He can’t believe how much he’s missed this. “I have the feeling you’ll be telling me about it for a long time,” he says, and Dean kisses him again just to prove him right.

He can feel it, when Jack starts bringing him back, because Cas starts to feel less real beneath his hands. Dean pulls away and rests his forehead on Cas’s and clings to him, still, for as long as he can. “You gotta wake up, okay? Jack, he’ll bring you back if you wake yourself up.”

“Dean,” Cas says, voice panicked as he realizes what’s happening.

Dean reaches up and cups Cas’s face in his hands. “Wake up,” Dean begs. “Or I swear to god I’m gonna keep coming back here for you.”

Cas lets out a wet laugh. Dean can barely feel the pressure of Cas’s hands against his body anymore. He doesn’t say how much it scares him. “You make it sound like it’s easy,” Cas murmurs. “Walking in and out of hell.”

“It ain’t easy,” Dean says. “But people pull off hard shit every day in the name of love, right?”

“Dean,” Cas chokes out.

Dean pulls away. It’s time to go, he knows. And as much as he wants this, uninterrupted, untainted, with Cas forever, the Empty is no place to have it. He wants it in the real world. All of it. Cas is crying, when Dean looks at him. “Wake up so I can say it to your face.”

“I will,” Cas promises him. Dean stitches the weight of it to his soul. 

He loses sight of Cas, after that, as he’s tugged out of the Empty and thrown back into reality. As he goes, he passes the other memories that Cas has lived in. There’s so many of them. Moments that Dean hadn’t even realized meant something. Moments that meant everything. He tries to hold onto those, too.

The four of them, sitting around the table with Jack. Their first hug in purgatory. Dean laughing as they burst out of that strip club. Dean throwing popcorn at the screen during movie night, and their laughter when Jack did the same. Their first hunt. Their last hunt. Dean’s face right before Cas died. The first time they met. All of it.

Dean holds onto all of it.

It doesn’t hurt the way he expected it to, when his soul finds his body again and settles in. It’s easy in a way nothing in their lives has ever been. He can still feel the ghost of Cas’s mouth against his as his soul stitches itself back into his skin.

As Dean lurches out of bed, gasping and frantic and _alive,_ one phrase rings clear in his head, loud enough for the entire world to hear. He holds onto that, too.

_The very touch of you heals, Castiel. When Dean Winchester first laid a hand on you in hell, he was found._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i caved and made a specific spn [twt acc](https://twitter.com/cardigancastiel) so you can find me on there or on my [tumblr](https://constellationspdf.tumblr.com/) which was brought back from the dead bc of fuckin supernatural✨

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on [twitter](https://twitter.com/SPACERICHlE) where i'm normally being a fuckin loser about the goddamn clown movies if u wanna come say hello✨


End file.
